Chamber honors Gawthrop Greenwood, DePuy Synthes

Photos by Bill Rettew Jr.
Randy Christy and Barbara Willis of DNB FIRST Bank share a lighter moment prior to Thursday’s Chester County Chamber of Business & Industry Small Business Dinner at the Desmond Hotel and Conference Center.

Photos by Bill Rettew Jr.
Marianne Martelli, chamber vice president, and keynote speaker Brian DiSabatino, president of EDiS, chat prior to Thursday’s Small Business Dinner of the Chester County Chamber of Business & Industry at the Desmond Hotel and Conference Center.

EAST WHITELAND — The Chester County Chamber of Business & Industry recognized a pair of local businesses and heard from keynote speaker Brian DiSabatino of EDiS Company on Thursday night at the Desmond Hotel and Conference Center.

Almost 300 chamber members attended the Small Business Dinner, Celebrating the Spirit of Free Enterprise.

The Small Business of the Year Award was presented to law firm Gawthrop Greenwood PC, and medical implantable and external fixation device manufacturer DePuy Synthes received the chamber’s Green Business Award.

Gawthrop Greenwood was established as a family legal practice in 1904. The firm’s 23 attorneys and a support staff of 15 serve Pennsylvania, Delaware, New Jersey and Maryland.

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The firm has produced seven presidents of the Chester County Bar Association, four judges and the county’s first female judge.

Gawthrop Greenwood attorney Sandra Knapp told the audience that the firm’s “recipe for success” is its involvement in the community.

DePuy Synthes picked up the Green Business Award. The 1,800-employee company identified a yearly 72,000 pound recycling stream that is now diverted from the waste stream.

The award program recognizes businesses using natural resources in an efficient and sustainable manner. “These businesses may emphasize resource conservation, waste reduction, recycling and/or buying recycled products as standard business practice,” according to the event program.

Keynote speaker DiSabatino talked about the company’s founder, his grandfather, and a pre--World War I move to American from Italy. The Italian family stuck together when moving to the U.S., where they believed “the streets are paved with gold,” DiSabatino said.

EDiS was formed 105 years ago and delivers facility planning, design, construction and facility management in southeastern Pennsylvania and Delaware.

Brian DiSabatino leads the company with partners Andy, Andrew and Rick DiSabatino. Company growth during the past 10 years skyrocketed from $80 million in sales to $150 million, with a repeat business exceeding 93 percent.

With much humor, DiSabatino listed several hallmarks that have kept the family-owned business operating for more than a century.

“No job is too small,” said DiSabatino. “Little jobs lead to big jobs.”

He also told the business leaders to surround themselves with good people and the very best talent.

DiSabatino said his father taught him to respect and learn from the competition.

“Our competitors were always teaching our customers something that we couldn’t,” DiSabatino said. The value of reinvesting in each other and the community was noted along with the need to never stop imagining.